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Agriculture Communication Development Ecology

Medicine Morphogenesis Stress and Recovery

Page 6 of 7

(1)To prolong our studies of the morphogenetical role of mechanical stress fields.  Mechanical stresses are another manifestation (along with a biophoton emission) of a fundamental non-equilibricity of the living matter. As shown by our previous investigations (reviews: Beloussov et al., 1994; Beloussov & Luchinskaia, 1996; Beloussov, 1994, 1996, 1997),  morphogenesis (that is, the formation of new shapes and structures during development of organisms) can be considered as a largely non-linear interplay of passive and active mechanical stresses. Such deep manifestations of a living state as memory properties are  also playing an important role in these interactions. If coming from the morphogenesis proper to the cell differentiation, we are confronted with the passage of potencies to actualities, which has its parallels in the consciousness problem. Our recent results in this field are as follows:

• We  were able to show, that the maintenence of a proper stress field during one of the most crucial stages of vertebrate  morphogenesis, the early gatrula stage, is necessary for establishing a proper developmental order and the quantitative correlations in the development of axial rudiments. What is preestablished before these fields come into action is no more than a set of intermixed potencies. Actually, before being included into a common stress field each single cell “knows nothing” about its future developmental fate.
• In the experiments by stretching artificially the early gastrula ectoderm on the artificial adhesive substrates, we demonstrated:
1. that even those cells respond to the stretching by the intercalation movements which do not show at all these capacities in their normal development;
2. that this response is associated with the hyperrestoration of a previous stress value;
3. that by exhibiting such a response, a tissue piece only “remembers” the last stress shift  and only if the corresponding stress value had been maintained for no less than several dozens of minutes.

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